African Ancestry is a company that helps transform the way people view themselves and the way they view Africa!

Founded in 2003 by Dr. Rick Kittles and Gina Paige, African Ancestry is the world leader in tracing maternal and paternal lineages of African descent having helped more than 500,000 people re-connect with the roots of their family tree.

Most companies can only tell you what continent you originated from, but not what country. With the industry’s largest and most comprehensive database of over 30,000 indigenous African samples, African Ancestry determines specific countries and—more often than not—specific ethnic groups of origin with an unrivaled level of detail, accuracy and confidence.

African Ancestry is committed to providing a unique service to the black community by working daily to improve the cultural, emotional, physical, spiritual and economic wellbeing of people across the African Diaspora.

PIONEER: In 2003, Dr. Gina Paige co-founded African Ancestry, Inc. and in doing so, pioneered a new way of tracing African lineages using genetics, and a new marketplace for people of African descent looking to more accurately and reliably trace their roots. Paige travels the world helping people demystify where they’re from and informing on identities so that they may better understand who they are.

RESPECTED LUMINARY: Paige has worked with and revealed the roots of the worlds’ leading icons and entities including Oprah Winfrey, John Legend, Spike Lee, Condoleezza Rice and The King Family; Her work is featured in Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., African American Lives 1 & 2, Sirius Satellite Radio, The Africa Channel, NBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? and CNN’s Black in America series; Paige has also worked with McDonalds, Capital One, Booz Allen Hamilton, Wells Fargo, United Healthcare and dozens of community organizations and faith-based entities.

MEDIA RESOURCE: Paige has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including Jet Magazine, Time Magazine, USA Today, 60 Minutes, NewsOne Now with Roland Martin, HuffPost Live with Marc Lamont Hill, The Joe Madison Show, The Tom Joyner Morning Show, FOX Business News, Reuters, New York Times, Canal Media Company, Black Enterprise, NPR, Metro Source Urban Radio, American Urban Radio Networks, The Grio.com and TheRoot.com among many others. In 2015, Paige launched a special edition radio program on SiriusXM titled African Ancestry Radio.

ENTREPRENEURIAL DNA: From a lineage of entrepreneurs, Paige launched her first business at age 8, with a magazine purposed to raise money for family trips. She went on to start a “Pik-A-Pak” Care Packages as a Stanford University graduate, helping families stay connected with their children while away at school. Prior to forming African Ancestry, Paige was the founder and president of GPG Strategic Marketing Resources.

EDUCATION: Paige resides in Washington, D.C. and holds a degree in Economics from Stanford University and an MBA from the University Of Michigan Ross School Of Business. Paige also holds an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from Global Oved Dei Seminary University.

PIONEERING RESEARCHER: Dr. Rick Kittles is Co-founder and Scientific Director of African Ancestry, Inc. It is through his years of research on genetic variation in African peoples, his passion for African history and the movements of its people throughout the world that African Ancestry was created in 2003. Since then, African Ancestry has made its mark as a pioneering force in ancestry tracing, being the first in the industry to geographically assess African lineages to a present-day country of origin.

DNA MATCHMAKER: As African Ancestry’s lead geneticist, Kittles oversees its proprietary African Lineage Database, as well as works in collaboration with historians, anthropologists, linguists and other geneticists to safeguard the accuracy, relevance and integrity of the company’s DNA testing system. Dr. Kittles and African Ancestry Co-founder Gina Paige single-handedly helped to establish a new marketplace in DNA-based ancestry tracing for people of African descent with transformative products that tap into a more meaningful side of life. Under Kittles’ direction, African Ancestry’s DNA database remains the largest and most comprehensive ever collected making its lineage matching the most accurate and reliable in the marketplace.

LEADING GENETICIST: Dr. Kittles is very active in the field of human genetics and genetic anthropology, particularly as it relates to complex disease and health disparities in African Americans. Dr. Kittles research interests explore DNA, family history, and disease. Dr. Kittles is an international leader on race and genetics, health disparities, and cancer genetics. His work on tracing the genetic ancestry of African Americans has brought to focus many issues, new and old, which relate to race, ancestry, identity, and group membership. Currently, he is professor and founding director of the Division of Health Equities within the Department of Population Sciences at City of Hope.

SUBJECT MATTER EXPERT: Dr. Kittles’ work at African Ancestry has ignited global interest and dialogue, as well as unprecedented focus on African ancestry tracing in U.S. and abroad. His work has been featured over the past decade in five BBC and PBS network documentaries, CNN, and an interview with Leslie Stahl on CBS 60 Minutes. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on genetic variation in the African Diaspora, “Race”, prostate cancer, and Health Disparities.

Kittles received a Ph.D in Biological Sciences from George Washington University. As an assistant professor at Howard University in 1997, Dr. Kittles helped establish a national cooperative network to study the genetics of hereditary prostate cancer in African Americans. He also served as co-director of Molecular Genetics in the National Human Genome Center at Howard University.

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